In perhaps the strangest 999 call ever recorded, a man in west-Yorkshire actually called the emergency services to demand the police arrest his girlfriend’s cat for having the audacity to eat his bacon.

The incredible one-and-a-half-minute clip has been released by authorities to highlight time-wasting calls to the emergency services, and we’d say this one fits the bill to a tee!

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In the clip, the man says, “I want to press charges” against the animal. The 999 operator asks the man if he wants to prosecute his girlfriend or the cat and he insists “both of them”.

He is then told by the operator that his problem is not an emergency or a police matter. “We don’t arrest cats,” she points out – a sentence she probably never thought she’d ever have to say.

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Head of the force’s customer contact centre, Tom Donahoe, said that one in ten 999 calls did not require emergency attention.

Mr Donahoe said:

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A lot of the time we’re talking about a matter of seconds between us being able to get to a genuine emergency effectively and not being able to and during these few seconds people’s lives are being put at risk.

The cat crime is one of many strange calls highlighted by the police. Other examples include a man who called 999 at 2am to ask who the actor was that played Magnum PI (Tom Selleck, if you were wondering) and another who called the emergency services to ask what the number was for non-emergencies.